Renovating an Old Pond

This morning, I made a few more larger patches in the big lower pond today.









I trimmed around and in the smaller upper pond before I started to work on it, so I could see mroe of what's going on here.



I started clearing out the dirt and rocks from the side of the concrete wall of the smaller upper pond.





Progress pictures of the lower and upper ponds

I made some more patches this morning before bucking hay the rest of the day until sundown.

I made a patch this morning, then spent the rest of the day bucking hay.

I laid some concrete down for some small holes.



Then, I moved a lot of dirt out of the upper pond for most of the day.

I made another repair to the lower pond, and then, the rest of the day was spent bucking hay.

I patched more cracks in the lower pond.







And I moved more rocks and dirt off the walls of the upper pond.



And here's a couple overall progress pictures

I made another patch this morning.



Then, I moved more dirt and rocks. Then, the majority of the day was spent bucking hay.

I moved some rock and dirt this morning, and then, I was doign hay until sundown...

I moved some dirt and rocks on both sides of the upper pond.





And I patched a little crack in the lower pond



Overall progress pictures of the lower and upper ponds

Yesterday, one of my fellow hay crew members wasn't feeling too well, so we only did half a day of hay. I spent the remainder of the day working on the small upper pond and cleared off the wall of more rocks and dirt. There's a nice little berm going along the side of the pond with all the dirt I'm shoveling out. Today, we'll be trying for a full day of hay.



Overall progress picture of the upper pond:

I think this will look amazing full of water. But what a lot of work!!

Since we started later today to do hay, I spent the morning digging out more of the upper. It took us a bit longer to finish the hay than planned, but I'm quite happy now that hay season is over! We baled all of the hay, and I can get back to working on the ponds more! Working on the ponds is great for me to be able to listen to the Permaculture podcasts!

Since it was rainy this morning, I spent this afternoon working on the upper pond. I spent the morning working on the windows.



And here's an overall progress picture of the upper pond:

I tried to get as close to finishing uncovering the wall of the upper pond, before I go to Wheaton Labs tomorrow.

I made a lot more progress getting dirt and rocks off of both sides of the upper pond. There's just a little bit left to uncover at the top portion of the upper pond.





This is my overall progress on the upper pond.

I got very close to uncovering the entire wall of the upper pond this morning- only five or six feet left.

Clearly cement is a horrible medium for a pond in that location.   May I suggest lining your pond with a "pond liner".  That way when the cement cracks again which it will your hard work won't go down the drain so to speak.

I hope Dave will come back and show what the pond looks like 7 years later.